


It's not easy being Lisa

by tinyniel



Category: Supernatural
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-06
Updated: 2013-01-06
Packaged: 2017-11-23 22:12:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,310
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/627062
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tinyniel/pseuds/tinyniel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lisa watches the man next to her sleep quietly, peacefully for a change. He's rarely like this. Usually, he twitches and moans in his sleep. Mumbles. Sometimes he mutters names.</p>
<p>
  <i>Cas. Bobby.</i>
</p>
<p>Sometimes, he wakes up screaming.</p>
<p>
  <i>Sammy!</i>
</p>
<p>- </p>
<p> Lisa is one of my least favourite characters on the show. So I kind of felt like I owed her this.</p>
            </blockquote>





	It's not easy being Lisa

**Author's Note:**

> Crossposted at sn-fic.livejournal.com and my fiction journal (lil-nefarious.livejournal.com/1064.html)

Lisa watches the man next to her sleep quietly, peacefully for a change. He's rarely like this. Usually, he twitches and moans in his sleep. Mumbles. Sometimes he mutters names.

_Cas. Bobby._

Sometimes, he wakes up screaming.

_Sammy!_

Lisa doesn't ask. She learned very early on that there's no point. She tried to be supportive the first couple of weeks after he turned up, broken and lost on her doorstep. She tried to get him to talk about it, tried to be there when he seemed to need it the most.

But she soon saw that there was no use. For all the good there is in him, opening up is something he's really bad at.

Some days are good. Really good. He'll wake up smiling, pull her into an embrace, kiss her like she's the only woman he's ever going to want to kiss and mutter something about the point of going to work when there are so much more tempting activities he could engage in right here.

Days like that, she doesn't want to get out of bed either.

Or she'll wake up to the smell of bacon, and find him in the kitchen with breakfast ready, Ben already out of bed and dressed, the two of them laughing over some story Dean's just told him.

And he'll hand her a plate, kiss her (usually resulting in a "ew, gross you guys!" from Ben) and she'll look into his eyes and see actual happiness there.

They'll go out to dinner with friends, and he'll laugh and smile and talk about normal stuff like mortgages, or gas-prices or the Super Bowl. And he'll get a little too drunk, and check out the waitress a couple of times too many.

And then make it all up to her when they get home.

He's teaching Ben about cars. The two of them have spent endless afternoons and Saturdays under the hood of his truck, both coming in for supper with grease-black faces and hands, Ben beaming up at Dean in a way that both warms and breaks Lisa's heart.

Sometimes, she thinks she should tell Dean the truth.

She knows Ben opens up to him, much more than he does to Lisa. Last week, he came home from school looking like his dog had been run over, but he refused to tell Lisa anything. Later that night, she overheard him telling Dean all about that girl in his class with the long, blonde hair and the blue eyes and how was a girl like that ever going to notice him? And Dean had put a hand on his shoulder, and said that "she's going to notice you because you're going to make sure she does". Which had been followed by a string of suggestions on how to catch a girl's attention.

The next day, Ben had come home smiling.

Other times, the two of them are locked in a yelling match Lisa's sure the neighbours three houses down can hear. Ben screaming that "I bet you never had to do stupid stuff like this when you were my age" and Dean biting back that "no, and I'd give just about anything to have had the chance". To which Ben makes some snide comment, and Dean barks at him to "go to your room".

One of those times, just before Christmas last year, Ben had bit back "you can't tell me what to do, you're not my dad!". And Lisa had watched all the anger drain right out of Dean's face, watched his mouth drop open and his eyes go wide, his entire face falling.

Ben had gone to his room, Lisa had made sure of that. When she came back down, Dean was gone. So was the Impala.

Because some days are bad. Really bad.

Some days, she wakes up to an empty bed. And an empty garage. And a note on the fridge that says ' _be back in a couple of days_ '.

He never tells her where he's been. And she can't bring herself to ask.

Some nights he doesn't sleep. She knows, because she doesn't either. She lies awake, listening to his uneven breathing, knows he's lying there thinking, torturing himself and there is nothing she can do to help him.

Some days, she'll catch him in the garage, sheet pulled off the Impala, his fingers running along its smooth, black finish. Or she'll find him behind the wheel with a beer, some rock band or another playing on low volume, his eyes red, staring at nothing.

Sometimes, he lets her comfort him then. He doesn't talk, doesn't tell her why he needs it. But at least he lets her.

Other times, they fight. When she loses her patience, demands that he talk to her. Tell her what's going on. And he refuses to. Or gets angry. And they shout at each other, stupid things they don't mean until Dean finally snaps, bites out "well, you knew what you signed up for!" and stalks out the door.

She wants to tell him that she didn't. That she had no idea. That when he turned up on her doorstep that night, heartbroken and on the verge of tears, she acted on impulse. How was she ever going to turn him away like that?

He always comes crawling back, apologetic and hurt. She always lets him.

They moved once because Dean was convinced there were vampires hunting in the area. Another time, he thought one of their neighbours was a rugaru. He keeps a gun under the bed. He drinks, a lot more than he should, and he doesn't think she knows.

Once, as they were leaving a restaurant, he stopped and stared into the alley behind it, a look of utter terror on his face. He never told Lisa what he saw.

Sometimes, she'll see him in the garden, leaning against a tree or sitting on the garden bench, staring up at the sky and muttering to himself. If Dean wasn't Dean, she would think he was talking to Sam.

One time, she overheard him.

"Please. I just need to talk to you."

Lisa doesn't know what happened to Sam. Not really. He's dead, that's the only thing Dean has told her. They were working a job, a high-risk one, and Sam died.

Out of all the questions she doesn't ask, that one is top of her list.

It's not easy being Lisa. Not knowing what she gets from day to day. If it's perfect-boyfriend-and-stepdad Dean, or if it's depressed-and-broken-mess Dean. Not knowing if she's going to wake up to a pair of warm lips, or to an empty bed and a cryptic note.

But she doesn't mind. Because when he's there with them, really there. When his smile reaches his eyes, when they're curled up on the sofa watching some movie she has no idea why he agreed to in the first place. When he falls asleep during Grace Anatomy, because he thinks it's insanely boring but they had a fight earlier that day and he just wants to stay close to her.

When he's helping Ben with his homework, or taking him to the park to play soccer. When he makes an effort to get to know her friend's suit-wearing, boring-job-in-the-city husband just to please her.

When he wakes her up in the middle of the night in the best way possible ...

It's all worth it. All the bad days, the fights, the frustration. Because it's slowly getting better. His bad days are getting fewer, and a little further apart. And Lisa thinks that maybe, some day, Dean's going to be whole again. Not entirely, not completely. Not as long as Sam is gone.

But maybe some day, he'll be fine. He'll be OK.

In the meantime, it's worth the wait.

Even if it's not easy, being Lisa.


End file.
